Community arts are associated with people
coming together in local arts centers, museums, schools, homes, places
of worship, social clubs, recreation facilities, and civic associations
among other settings, both formal and informal.

Community arts settings are among those
informal and formal enclaves in which people assemble, work, and act together
for a variety of political, cultural, economic, and educational purposes.
The arts produced in such settings function, in part, as catalysts for
dialogue about individual and group identity as well as local, national,
and international concerns. In this regard, community arts have the capacity
to foster the discourse required by democracy and that nourishes civil
society. In many instances this discourse has been directed towards debating
and creating what is considered to be the "common good" and helping to
define "good" citizenship.

Despite the obvious importance that community
arts initiatives and organizations have within American society and to
the perpetuation of American democracy, there are no comprehensive scholarly
historical surveys available on the topic. Nor are there many detailed
studies of specific community arts events, programs, participants, purposes,
and places that can support and/or supplement broader historical surveys.

Maryo Ewell's article in this issue of
CultureWork inaugurates what I hope will be the regular and frequent appearance
of advisories that provide a historical perspective on community arts and
culture work. Previously in this publication, Maryo Ewell's Community
Arts Councils: Historical Perspective has been presented in three parts.
In this issue, Community Arts Councils: Historical Perspective is
presented in its entirety, along with another historical article, The
Montana Study, by Clayton Funk. It is my hope that these essays will
stimulate others to submit historically oriented manuscripts.

It is important that those of us associated
with community arts commit to creating a shared history that informs and
stimulates our endeavors. Readers are encouraged to consult
manuscript
submission guidelines at the conclusion of this issue. I will be pleased
to communicate with any person who wishes to write on our shared history
for CultureWork. I can be reached at <dblandy@darkwing.uoregon.edu>.

MYpurpose
is to tell you about community arts councils, from the ideas that generated
them to the present. I believe that story-telling enables people to evaluate
how far they have come, to attribute significance to what has happened,
and to enable people to then define a course for the future. When you're
50, as the community arts council movement now is, you have the ability
to synthesize diverse experience into something that finally makes sense
as a whole; wisdom flows from a sense of wholeness. As a person associated
with this movement, I see my challenge as articulating what I've learned,
what the community arts council movement once was, and what it is becoming.

Gestation (1853
– 1955)

Its often said that the “community arts
council movement” began in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in 1949. In one
way, that's true. But it would be equally true to say (and people
in those communities do say) that “the movement” was born in Quincy, Illinois
and in Canon City, Colorado, for in the period 1946-49 all three communities
were in the convening, discussion, planning, and incorporating stages.It is worth paying heed to foundational
stories that made the creation of community arts councils almost inevitable,
for if ideas move in 40-50 year cycles, as many people suggest, then the
old stories are poised for rebirth. Some stories are about community
movements with an arts emphasis; others are about arts movements with a
community emphasis. The community arts council is a hybrid – its strongest
attribute, perhaps, but one which also leads to ongoing, and often passionately
argumentative, soul-searching.

The Physical Community

In 1853, the “Village Improvement” movement
began in Massachusetts. “Proponents of village improvement sought
to beautify their communities by controlling billboards, planting trees,
paving streets and sidewalks, and securing recreational facilities.
By 1900, [there existed] a national network of 3,000 village improvement
associations characterized by citizen activism and a commitment to recapture
a sense of community through a concern for aesthetics.” (Dreeszen &
Korza, 1994). The “City Beautiful” movement had culminated in the
Chicago World's Fair which advocated a return to beautiful, inspirational
classical architecture (and many of these Fair sites – the Museum of Science
& Industry, the Aquarium, the Midway with its classical sculpture,
still remain in their grandeur). Early in the twentieth century, landscape
architects and park planners – most famous among them Frederick Law Olmstead
– were integrating public art and plantings into thoughtful public gathering-places;
indeed, several public art commissions were created in the 19-teens for
that purpose.

The growing industrialization of America
in the early part of the century and the growth of huge business agglomerates
led to a fascination with, and a valuing of, efficiency (think of Ford's
assembly line). Says Dreeszen, “In an era during which efficiency
was the primary value, aesthetics were thought to be superficial, impractical,
inefficient, and costly.” (Dreeszen & Korza, 1994, p. 4) Moreover,
some insisted (probably correctly) that grand public buildings, museums,
and public art primarily benefited the upper class.

Frank Lloyd Wright was, perhaps, the best
known of the American architects and designers who took a stand against
this perspective, arguing that quality design should be a public good.
His vision of “Usonia” included affordable housing of high quality design
integrated into the natural landscape. He went further, believing
that furniture, drapery and upholstery fabric, even wallpaper, could and
should be both beautiful and affordable. Indeed, he designed lines
of fabric and wallcoverings that were briefly sold through Sears – accessible,
functional art aimed at the middle class.

The Thinking Community

Josiah Holbrook of Millbury, Massachusetts,
gathered his neighbors together to read books and discuss the ideas that
they prompted. They began to invite professors to their gatherings,
as well, to lecture and discuss new ideas with them. This grassroots
movement grew into the American Lyceum Association in 1831, and by 1850,
perhaps 3,000 of these groups existed in communities of all sizes (Overton,
1997).

Honoraria were ultimately provided.
The assembly hall replaced the parlor as the gathering site. It seemed
logical and efficient that speakers should go “on the circuit.” In
1867, James Redpath centralized speakers through his booking company.
It was beautifully organized and costs were kept down through efficiency
savings; but Redpath’s Lyceum Bureau favored, of course, those groups that
could afford the fees, and those communities that were on railroad lines.
The grassroots self-improvement movement withered in the face of centralization
and efficiency (Overton, 1997).

At about this time, Methodist minister
Dr. John Heyl Vincent began experimenting with the arts as one way to better
teach the Bible at his summer camp in Chatauqua, New York (1874). The camps
proved so effective that Dr. Vincent encouraged the creation of Chatauqua
Literary and Scientific Circles based on his study packages. In Overton’s
(1997) opinion these packages promoted the arts as a way to teach and learn.

Meanwhile, Keith Vawter, new manager of
Redpath’s Lyceum Bureau, believed that by combining the fine Lyceum speakers
with the great number of potential “presenters” - Chatauqua circles - more
audiences could be reached and more work could be available for the speakers.
Realizing that many of the Chatauqua circle communities did not have assembly
halls, Vawter provided tents. The tents – perhaps symbolizing the
populist circus and religious revival experience – tended to draw people
from all walks of life as nothing had done before. Gradually, theater experience
was introduced into the Tent Chatauqua (Overton, 1997).

The Cultured Community:

It is often said in the West that the building
built after the assayer's office and saloon was the opera house.
Certainly, grand opera houses and performance halls abounded in large cities,
but they were equally numerous in small towns. For example, Leadville,
Colorado, was famous for its elegant Tabor Opera House.

Extraordinary performers like Edmund Booth
and Sarah Bernhardt rode the opera house circuit, and local leagues presenting
the performing arts sprang up everywhere. Community Concerts series – many
of which sprang up in the early 1940’s, and were affiliated with Columbia
Artists Management – proliferated throughout America's smallest towns.
In the Southwest, vaudeville theater – in Spanish – toured throughout Texas
and into California, with bi-lingual companies presenting plays that made
important statements about the lives of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans
(Kanellos, 1990).

Meanwhile, community-based arts organizations
were multiplying. The Little Theater movement began in the nineteen-teens
and spread rapidly. Quincy, Illinois had a small orchestra with a paid
conductor by 1947. There was a visual art league in Fargo that went back
to 1911. The arts could no longer be considered the purview of the
larger cities.

Communities were starting to think of the
arts more broadly. For example, in 1927 the Cincinnati Institute of Fine
Arts was formed “for the purpose of stimulating the development of
art and music in the city of Cincinnati." (Gibans, 1982, pp. 25-26).
A little later, Virginia Lee Comer, on the central staff of the Cincinnati
Junior League, recognized the unmet needs of cultural groups across the
country and the absence of cultural opportunities in many places. Her 1944
manual, The Arts and Our Town, was the precursor of cultural planning,
examining

…all aspects of participation in the arts
and also opportunities for appreciation of them, and [in the survey we]
included agencies whose sole purpose is to provide cultural opportunity,
such as museums, and those whose programs may touch cultural fields, such
as radio stations and civic clubs. In addition, organizations of
large groups of people such as housing projects, unions, churches, etc.,
have been included since they are channels through which large numbers
can be informed of existing facilities and services and may themselves
have developed activities. (Gibans,1982, pp21)Perhaps the timing was logical for this
community arts development, emerging as it did around the time of the New
Deal. The value of artists to a community's makeup was publicly acknowledged,
as the Works Progress Administration, Federal Theater and other initiatives
employed hundreds of artists, writers, playwrights and “arts administrators.”
These programs were short-lived, but they first articulated the role that
artists play in public life, and created corresponding public support mechanisms.

The Creative Community

In 1888, Jane Adams established Hull House
in Chicago, perhaps the best known of the settlement houses. Her
credo was access. Poverty should not mean disenfranchisement from a decent,
educated and creative life. Among the comprehensive social programs of
Hull House, which served a diverse immigrant community of 5,000-6,000 people,
were a kindergarten, a public kitchen, a gymnasium, a men's club, a circulating
library, an employment bureau, an art gallery, and a drama group. Today,
the schools affiliated with the National Guild of Community Schools of
the Arts identify their roots in the settlement house movement: Guild schools
pledge that no student may be denied access to learning the arts because
of inability to pay tuition, nor denied access to learning the arts because
of inadequate “talent.”

In rural America, the Extension Service
created similar access to the arts. While our stereotype today may limit
4-H to young people raising animals, and homemakers’ programs to baking,
we couldn't be further from the historical truth. Grounded in the Smith-Lever
Act of 1914, Extension agents organized opera groups in rural Iowa, integrated
the arts and recreation in West Virginia, helped stimulate folk arts in
Kentucky, used the arts as a community planning tool in Ohio (Patten, 1932).

Five professors, who were employed by,
or collaborated with, their University's extension divisions are important
to mention. They explicitly linked Extension's programmatic activity to
the notion that a citizen whose creativity is supported will be more likely
to participate in his society, that community progress will emerge from
creative participation, and that American democracy will be furthered as
a result. They are:

1. Alexander Drummond, professor
of drama at Cornell University from 1912-52. Drummond advertised in agricultural
journals for farmers who might be interested in writing plays about their
lives and their communities, and assisted them with the writing and producing
of these plays.

2. Frederick Koch of the University of
North Carolina, Drummond's contemporary. He believed that all people should
be writing “folk plays” about their community and life; some 50 such plays,
written by students and non-students, black and white, sharecropper and
well-heeled, were produced each year.

3. Alfred Arvold, of North Dakota State
University, wrote in 1923 that "…there are literally millions of people
in country communities today whose abilities along various lines have been
hidden, simply because they have never had an opportunity to give expression
to their talents (p. 23)."

Arvold’s approach to drama and to life
was organic and holistic. He clearly saw arts development, community
development, science, and democracy as interrelated. In discussing
what we might, today, call “cultural centers” he said:

A community center is a place, a neighborhood
laboratory, so to speak, where people meet in their own way to analyze
whatever interests they have in common and participate in such forms of
recreation as are healthful and enjoyable. The fundamental principle
back of the community center is the democratization of all art so the common
people can appreciate it, science so they can use it, government so they
can take part in it, and recreation so they can enjoy it. In other
words, its highest aim is to make the common interests the great interests.
To give a human expression in every locality to the significant meaning
of these terms – “come let's reason and play together” – is in reality
the ultimate object of the community center. (Arvold, 1923, p. 4).

4. Baker Brownell worked in Montana in
the 1940’s. Brownell, a philosopher, developed a community self-study process
that enabled people to plan together for the future of their community.
Integral to this process was the collective writing of a community pageant
that helped citizens see issues and options more clearly. He called
this whole process “community development” (Brownell, 1950).

5. Robert Gard of the University
of Wisconsin, playwright for the College of Agriculture from 1945-1980.
The “Wisconsin Idea” was a political notion that linked public education,
public service, citizen participation and community progress. Gard’s Wisconsin
Idea Theater reached out from Madison and inspired literally tens of thousands
of Wisconsinites to write plays, poetry, books derived from their lives
and from their sense of place as one way of building Wisconsin by building
personal creativity.

In 1955 Gard quoted a rural woman: "She
said that there must be a great, free expression. If the people of
Wisconsin knew that someone would encourage them to express themselves
in any way they chose…it was her opinion that there would be such a rising
of creative expression as is yet unheard of in Wisconsin…for the whole
expression would be of and about ourselves (p. 217)."

In this context, Gard (1955) reflected
on the training of community arts leaders:New community arts leaders should be issuing
from…all the universities and colleges of the nation….The young person
graduating from the university [today] has little concept of the scope
of the theater to be developed, of the delicate social problems involved
in fitting himself and his talents into community life. (p. 250).

The Tolerant Community

While thinkers, writers and activists for
decades have described the cultural tensions that exist in this nation,
and have prescribed approaches to cultural understanding, Rachel Davis
Dubois published a book in 1943 that is seminal to understanding the role
of the arts in community. In Get Together Americans: Friendly
Approaches to Racial and Cultural Conflicts Through the Neighborhood-Home
Festival Davis Dubois counsels readers in ways still relevant today.
She writes

…The melting pot idea, or “come-let-us-do-something-for-you”
attitude on the part of the old-stock American was wrong. For half
the melting pot to rejoice in being made better while the other
half rejoiced in being better allowed for neither element to be
its true self….The welfare of the group…means [articulating] a creative
use of differences. Democracy is the only atmosphere in which this
can happen, whether between individuals, within families, among groups
in a country, or among countries. This kind of sharing we have called
cultural
democracy. Political democracy – the right of all to vote – we have
inherited… Economic democracy – the right of all to be free from want –
we are beginning to envisage…. But cultural democracy – a sharing of
values among numbers of our various cultural groups – we have scarcely
dreamed of. Much less have we devised social techniques for creating
it (pp. 5-6). (emphasis is the author's)

Dubois goes on to describe why and how to
undertake a cultural and intercultural festival, as one of the key social
techniques.

Birth (1948 –
1965)

Within this period of gestation, local
groups were sponsoring public art/aesthetics programs; presenting and integrating
the arts into teaching; establishing arts groups; using the arts as a planning
technique; integrating the arts into recreation and social-work movements;
surveying facilities; identifying arts needs; and staging intercultural
festivals. Public agencies for the arts existed in such cities as San Francisco,
Los Angeles, and Boston (Yuen, 1990) The everyday life of significant
numbers of Americans, representing all socio-economic groups, included
participation in the arts. What, then, is the importance of what happened
independently in Winston-Salem, Quincy, and Canon City?

These cities represented the first time
that communities made a grassroots, citizen-driven attempt to pull all
of the gestational trends together. Local groups were formed that looked
at the whole – all the arts, all segments of the community – where
before the emphasis was on the parts – certain art forms, certain
segments of the community. Each of these three communities began at a different
point, given the various needs of each community.

Winston-Salem

Winston-Salem had a long cultural tradition
by 1943 with a Civic Music Association (since 1930), a Little Theatre (since
1935), a Children's Theatre (since 1940), the Piedmont Festival of Music
and Art (since 1943) and much more. In 1943, the local Junior League brought
Virginia Lee Comer to Winston-Salem to help analyze the cultural life of
the whole community. Comers report outlined gaps in the community's
cultural life –gaps in the existing audience makeup and gaps in what was
available. Over the next few years, Miss Comer updated her reports, and
key members of the business and arts community responded. In 1946, the
local League set aside $7,200 “for the ‘Community Arts Council, until such
time the Council crystallizes its plans…” (Graham-Wheeler, 1989, pp. 6-7).

A vigorous newspaper campaign combined
with extensive conversations with existing arts organizations led to the
formation of the Winston-Salem Arts Council in 1949. Its purpose
was “to serve those members [organizations] and to plan, coordinate, promote,
and sponsor the opportunity for, and the appreciation of, cultural activities
in Winston-Salem and Forsyth County.” (Graham-Wheeler, 1989, p. 9).

The Arts Council grew. In 1968 Ralph Burgard
wrote:

Over the years, the Winston-Salem
council has helped organize seven new arts organizations, established a
united arts fund, and constructed an arts center. More importantly,
the councils comprehensive cultural program has received national acclaim
and changed the attitudes of local businessmen toward the arts. This
was an important factor when, under the leadership of R. Phil Hanes, Jr.,
a businessman and arts council trustee, over $1,000,000 was raised in 48
hours to establish the North Carolina School of the Arts… (p. 2).

Canon City, Colorado

Dotty Hawthorne, one of the original founders
of the Canon City Fine Arts Association, recalls that in 1947 the City
appointed a ten-member committee to look into a publicly-financed community
arts center. The group spearheaded a community meeting in this market/ranching/prison
town. Some 30 people met with a city planner who talked program development
as well as bricks-and-mortar. A cultural facility owned by the community
did not happen until 1992; but meanwhile, the citizens brought a nationally
known artist to be in residence in Canon City and to spearhead the development
of an arts school. They began the “Blossom Festival” exhibit in 1948
that continues to this day. Local musicians and dramatists were also
nurtured through a variety of programs, and other visiting artists brought
to town as well.

Quincy, Illinois

In 1948, George Irwin, conductor of the
Quincy Symphony Orchestra, was well aware of the abundance of talented
people returning home from World War II and of their hunger to participate
in creative activity. There were plenty of things to do in Quincy
– though only a small handful of formal arts organizations – but it seemed
as though there were unnecessary scheduling conflicts. Also, during
the war some of the existing arts groups had died. Quincy was a small city
and the arts supporters were a close-knit group. The Quincy Society of
Fine Arts was founded naturally and easily (“over the teacups,” said Nina
Gibans though George Irwin says today it was really “over the cocktails.”
(Gibans, 1982, p. 24) It had three purposes:

1) to help coordinate the calendar
of arts events;

2) to provide basic management services
to existing arts organizations that did (the Orchestra, the Art Club, the
Historical Society, and music conservatory); and

3) to stimulate the re-birth of the Quincy
Community Theater and Civic Music Association, and create any new organizations
that were needed.

Quincy was too small a city, of 40,000 people,
to formally request Junior League assistance. However, Irwin was well aware
of Ms. Comer's manual. Moreover, the American Symphony Orchestra
League (ASOL), under the leadership of Executive Secretary Helen Thompson,
had taken up the cause of stimulating community arts councils as a strategy
for audience development, and Irwin was a participant in the ASOL community
training sessions. (Indeed, ASOL’s entire conference in 1952, “was devoted
to discussion of plans for coordinated arts programs in cities” (Gibans,
1982, p. 4). Irwin brought development and management techniques
home.

Youth (1956 – 1990)

By 1956, there were some 55 community arts
councils in the country (Yuen, 1990). By 1967 there were an estimated 450
community arts councils, of which 70 employed some paid staff (Burgard,
1968). Of these, 273 were private non-profits, while 42 were public.
Twenty-four of the 29 cities of populations of 500,000+ had an arts council
(13) or commission (9). Fourteen years later that number had more than
doubled to an estimated 1000 arts councils (Gibans, 1982).

This phenomenal growth in the numbers of
community arts councils suggests that a “movement” was taking place within
the United States around the importance of linking community development
to citizens’ ability to access and participate in the arts. However, this
evolutionary movement must be understood as being more than just an increase
in numbers of local organizations.

Name changes reflect evolution as well.
Within its youth the generic name for “community arts council” would to
a great extent become “local arts agency.” This label reflects the belief
that what really matters is what an entity does, not what it calls itself.
For example, are not public arts commissions functionally the same as “community
arts councils?” What of the recreation district or arts-and-business council
that also serves as the de facto “community arts council” for its area?

Dramatic social change within American
society would have a profound impact on local arts agencies beginning in
the 1960s and continuing through the 1980s. For the local arts scene, two
moments and two movements changed society's orientation to art and the
nature
of art in the community.

Moments

The first moment was the creation of the
National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) in 1965 as part of President Lyndon
Johnson's “Great Society. “ This was important to local arts agencies because
the federal government had taken a new and firm stand about the importance
of a publicly-supported arts infrastructure that could be echoed at the
local level. Additionally, the NEA had to make 20% of its program
funds available to the states via state arts agencies (SAA's). By 1967,
all states and territories had created SAA's. So it was a logical next
step that this federal-state linkage should become a federal-state-local
linkage. Many local arts agencies sprang up as a result. Because of NEA
encouragement, many SAA's added community arts council program directors.
The NEA contributed, in part, to this arts environment by acting like a
Johnny Appleseed for the arts by sowing community arts councils across
the nation. Concurrently the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act
(CETA) (1974-83) enabled many local arts agencies to hire their first staff.
In short, community arts became a part of the tax-supported public service
and political scene.

The second moment was the Bicentennial
Celebration in 1976. The decade before the Bicentennial was a time
of local rediscovery. Historical societies, local Bicentennial commissions,
and groups of citizens began serious discussion of the meaning of their
community: Who are we? How can we express our “sense of place” and “sense
of our people?” This coast to coast discussion inspired many events
and festivals across the nation. The infrastructure and discussions that
began then still remain and continue today in many places. This Bicentennial
focus affected not only the number of descendent local arts agencies, but
also encouraged communities to discover their local uniqueness, values
and character of place. This same purpose of discovery continues to inform
the missions and programs of local arts agencies.

Movements

The importance of the Civil Rights Movement
to the evolution of arts in the community is inestimable. This movement,
growing through the 1950s and continuing full force through the 1960s brought
Americans’ attention to

the struggle to acknowledge personal
rights and to confront racial oppression put the need to respect diversity
on the community arts agenda….Artists are frequently on the front lines
of… social change movements. Through the work of many artists,
community arts organizations have been increasingly sensitized to issues
of social equity (Dreeszen & Korza, 1994). [emphasis mine]

President Ronald Reagan and the social policy
his administration encouraged constitute the second social movement of
importance. Federal funding for many social programs – not just arts programs
– was drastically reduced. Though public money for the arts had never been
easy to secure, it seemed abundant, in comparison to the Reagan and post-Reagan
years. Suddenly, local arts agencies had to think differently about sources
of funding. They had to be far more resourceful in the way they behaved.
They no longer had the resources to act in isolation. All of this, coupled
with the dawning realization that acting in isolation was not furthering
their cause anyway, prompted better management, better fiduciary practices,
more canny resource-mobilization, and a stance of entrepreneurialism and
collaboration.

Changing Programs

Finally, this period of youthfulness in
the evolution of community arts councils, or local arts agencies, is characterized
by changes in arts programs in response to larger societal changes. American
society of the late 1950s, 60s, 70s and 80s responded to far different
conditions than the conditions influencing the prototypical arts councils
of 1949.

Patterns of giving on the part of individuals
and corporations changed in response to a changing economy and shifting
patterns of wealth and wealth-transfer. There was increasing concern about
violent crime. There was also a growing awareness that “Generation
X” could, for the first time, not expect the promises of the “American
Dream.” Education costs grew simultaneously with apparently decreasing
abilities of American students. Corporate growth spawned franchised
goods and services throughout America, so that even the smallest most remote
communities began to look like all others regardless of region or cultural
character. Changing farm patterns and the growth of the Interstate
highway led to the demise of many towns. Changing patterns of transportation,
communications, life expectancy and the stock market, all worked together
to create situations in which significant numbers of people no longer needed
to live where they worked. People began to move frequently and live in
two or more places. A global economy affected how goods were manufactured
and how Americans worked and how companies were organized. Economic patterns
required two-worker families even among the middle class, with implications
for leisure time and volunteerism. Numbers of biological, two-parent nuclear
families diminished. Homelessness proliferated. Living with AIDS
and HIV became a fact of life for many. The “Anglo” majority became the
minority. Instant communications became possible via the World Wide Web
(WWW). The Cold War, which had served the function of uniting some
Americans against some external “enemy” ended. Medical breakthroughs
helped people to live longer meaning more groups requesting, and requiring,
help in articulating meaning in their lives. Environmental issues required
attention, as environmental degradation became too great to be ignored.
Changing ideas of the correct use of taxes resulted in ballot initiatives
resulting in cuts to government services. There was general questioning
of affirmative action, the role of government, religion, and the place
of the United States in the world community.

All of these issues began to be reflected
in the programs of local arts agencies as early as the mid-1960’s. Many
community arts councils had added the cultural or inter-cultural festival
to their activities. They began to look more broadly at their communities:
The
Arts In The Small Community: A National Plan (Gard, Warlum, & Kohlhoff,
1968/1993) proposed that local groups consider the environment (natural
resources, health, local history) as well as certain groups of people (ethnic
groups, youth, retired people) and collaborations with other local organizations
(businesses, schools, colleges, religious institutions, service clubs,
libraries) in forming community (Gard, Warlum, & Kohlhoff, 1968). Arts
in the City, published in the same year, was echoing these ideas in
an urban setting (Burgard, 1968).

As but one example of the evolution from
a simple arts program to comprehensive reform, consider the local arts
agency's changing role in education. Initially, arts councils took arts
programs to schools for lecture-demonstrations and assembly programs.
By the 1970’s councils began emphasizing artists-in-school residencies.
They next began working on curriculum reform that emphasized the use of
arts to achieve other learning objectives (improving reading ability, for
instance) and social objectives (student retention).

During this period, local arts agencies
tried to influence whole systems such as public education or social welfare.
Numbers of program options became staggering in response to identified
community needs. Continuing to the present it is common to discover
local arts agencies doing everything that their prototypes did in 1949
with the addition of the new programs that the social and historical awareness
of the 1960’s inspired. Council activities consisted of programmatic layers
associated with arts education activity and social change initiatives.
Local arts agencies began and continue to facilitate artist residency programs
in settings as diverse as factories, corporate offices, homeless shelters,
and hospices. Local arts agencies are often the facility-developer-manager
in their community. Local arts agencies added programs for seniors,
youth-at-risk, and other under-served community groups. They appeared
at the table for the development and aesthetics of new housing, transportation,
and community “redevelopment.” They are also at the table in comprehensive
community economic development, planning and tourism. They began
promoting their communities' artistic resources internationally on the
Web. They pioneered entrepreneurial approaches to expand their financial
and social capital. Through these comprehensive services, local arts
agencies evolved into vitally important forces in their community. It is
important to once again note that was accomplished in an era that began
with widespread public support for local arts agencies and ends with shrinking
resources and a sometimes-hostile governmental climate. This historical
period concludes with art councils stretched to the limit, seeing more
to be accomplished, and with beleaguered staffs overwhelmed by it all.

Adulthood (1990
– 1999)

By 1990, the National Assembly of Local
Arts Agencies (NALAA) estimated 3,000 local arts agencies. Of these, about
one third were staffed. As of 1999, Americans for the Arts estimates some
3,500.Now is a crucial time to step back and
reflect. The effective practitioner is the reflective practitioner – one
who plans, acts, reflects, and replans based on that reflection.
Like the 50-year-old person, those of us associated with local arts agencies
are in a wonderful position, finally, to synthesize all of our experience
and decide what we will do with that experience.

What have been some of our results? Most
noticeably, local arts agencies are all pervasive - “a chicken is
in every pot,” says Bill Moskin (personal communication). As an institution,
local arts agencies are committed to breadth – all the arts/all the people.
This is in sharp contrast to previous movements and other community arts
institutions generally devoting themselves to depth – making a difference
for a single art form or for a single group of people. Local arts agencies,
because of their broad view and programs, have indeed met many community
needs and the needs of artists and arts organizations. Cultural participation
is probably broader than it might have been without them. Cultural planning
has “put arts and culture on the radar screen of mayors and city planners.”
(Dreeszen, personal communication).

Local arts agencies have affected people's
attitudes, and polls are showing high acceptance of the arts.More results: Americans are getting messages
– about arts education for instance – that they would not otherwise receive.
Audiences are probably larger and more diverse than they might have been.
It is likely that private and corporate philanthropy is being affected
by local arts agencies. It is probable that their grassroots voice has
made a difference in the survival of the National Endowment for the Arts
and in increasing state appropriations for the arts. It is certain that
their effectiveness has resulted in increasing local public funds for the
arts: “Arts councils…provide a voice and mechanism for the smaller groups
to be appreciated by/supported by the private sectors.” (Gibans, personal
communication). Across America, you can see the tangible work of local
arts agencies as well, in many beautiful cultural facilities and works
of public art, and in livelier cities and towns. Cultural understanding,
perhaps racial tension has been lessened in places. Those of us associated
with local arts agencies can be proud of our achievements.

It is tempting to hope that we are on the
right path and we simply need to do more of the same, to finish the job
we have begun. As over-extended people, we tend to see next steps in terms
of streamlining, improving what is there, becoming more efficient - so
that we can find a way to add more. We seek the better way to deliver technical
assistance. The ultimate strategy to get the resources. The perfect
board-development workshop that will mobilize people to do tasks better.

Yet more and more we hear that there is
a “paradigm shift in the offing.” There are many conversations we need
to engage in as we approach this new century. Here are a few:

Most of us, I think, would agree that we are
trying to do more than expand arts activity and audiences. Most would
say that we are trying to affect behaviors and attitudes. But would
we all agree on what behaviors and what attitudes? Just towards the
arts? Or are we also talking about attitudes towards our communities?
Towards one another? Towards the future? Are we trying to stimulate
arts in our community, for our community, by our community,
of
our community? Once you go here you open many dialogues, many of them,
perhaps, unsettling and uncomfortable. What's our responsibility
to open that dialogue?

xxx

Have we really changed thinking? Or have we
primarily offered programs in the hopes that they change thinking?
Remembering Harry Chapin's passionate exhortation to us at the first National
Assembly of Community Arts Agencies’ convention, are we “the dance band
on the Titanic?”

We need to be at peace with what community
arts are. Some of the questions involved are: Is community art one
end of the spectrum with “fine art” on the other end? Or is community art
an art form in itself? Similarly, are “process” and “product” ends of a
spectrum or are they somehow melded? In short, how do we properly talk
about, and evaluate, “community art?”

Similarly, are we seeing our communities as
settings in which the arts thrive (which would be measured, then, by “more
arts” and “more people,” or are we ultimately after “more arts so that
our communities thrive” (which would be measured in terms of increasing
community “health”)? If this is a spectrum, given the very broad
mission statements of most community arts councils, do we know where we
choose to stand on this spectrum? Or is it a spectrum at all: is
this a false distinction?

Many community arts councils articulate a
concern that working on social action issues may be diluting their core
mission: “we're an arts group, not a community action group.” Is this still
true? How can this be discussed? How do we correctly evaluate our work?
In short, what is our “core mission” in the years ahead?

Collaboration with arts and non-arts groups
has proven an effective strategy for getting things done. Could collaboration
be more than a strategy – is it conceivably a way of reconceptualizing
a community as a whole? But if so, where is our identity?

Does the “third sector” – non-profits
– need to be re-framed? This question encompasses everything from
governance models (maybe a well-done board development retreat isn't the
“wellness pill” that we all seek) to budget development (why is “administrative
overhead” such a bogeyman?) to “product development” (why don't we invest
money in research / development and staff development? When we are asked
to be “more like a business,” why does this only apply to responsible short-term
management and not to these long-term investments?) Do we need to speak
in our own voice, rather than in the voice of one looking to please grant
panels or act like what a good non-profit “ought” to look like? Where,
in short, is the correct language by which we describe ourselves, evaluate
ourselves, and ask that others use to evaluate us? And having decided that
– how do we ensure that those terms really are used in evaluating us?

Similarly: it has been said that as the economy
becomes more global, there is a commensurate hunger for the local, the
authentic, the grounded. I believe that too. But, the local,
the authentic is often not packageable, not replicable, not controllable,
context-specific, and often involves small numbers. In short, it is not
efficient. In a society in which the efficient is rewarded, how do
we make our case?

Have we put such emphasis on becoming credible
as institutions that we're reaching the point where “institutionalization”
is interfering with “getting the job done?”

How do we truly affect the long run? This
includes everything from re-thinking fundraising (emphasizing endowments
for instance) to re-thinking the terms in which we define “success.”

How do we move from finger-in-the-dike solutions
to real systemic solutions to commonly agreed-upon problems? Maybe landing
a part-time art teacher isn't the solution. Maybe changing the way
a community conceives of educating children is the solution. How
on earth can we, understaffed, underfunded, and often battling for our
very existence, make any real difference? And if we apply significant
people and financial resources to long-run strategies, how can we also
continue to provide the wealth of programmatic activity that our funders
and members expect?

Should our movement shift from delivering
programs to a primary emphasis on community policy-making? How on earth
do we train and re-train ourselves to do so?

How do we truly understand “diversity?”
“Diversity” means more than people who may look different collectively
doing “business as usual;” it implies willingness to listen, to be vulnerable,
to change, to consider with courage that “business as usual” may be irrelevant,
to truly redistribute power. Can we embrace this?

Where are the new leaders going to come from?
Why on earth would a young person want to enter this world – what is the
“hook?”

The nation seems to be re-thinking what American
community and democracy is all about. Where are we in this discussion?

Does this kind of thinking imply more programs
“layering” on an already-overburdened group of volunteers and staffs? Or
do we need to “reset the counter to zero” and conceive of ourselves in
a new way?

No doubt, there are many, many more questions.
I feel hopeful, actually, and excited by questions such as these.
I see in America today a hunger for grounding, healing, wholeness. I see
a desire for the local, the “authentic,” the sense of community and family,
the sense of specialness, of meaning, growing as the Internet grows.

Maturity (2000
- )

The people who comprise the community arts
council movement are people of all political persuasions and cultural groups.
What I believe we have in common, though, is a common belief in the value
and specialness and potential of each individual, a common awe at new ways
of seeing, a joy in the achievement of others, a humanistic belief - so
passionate that it verges on the “religious.” We acknowledge the goodness
of humankind, a sense of justice, a love of home and home-place, a belief
that working together is a good, a belief that synthesizing approaches
is not only pragmatic but also delightful, a belief in service, a belief
that all people have a right to create and to participate in their society.
We believe in joy in life and bond in this shared philosophy. That's
our first starting point, acknowledging this.

We can act from this grounding. But
now we need to re-articulate how to do so. Ann Davis says: “The importance
of the arts council movement in American culture, I believe, will be tied
to the ability of leadership to question existing assumptions, examine
contractions and obstacles, and invent something new – and sometimes
moving forward may mean returning to something old [italics are Davis's]”
(Davis, personal communication).

If, indeed, ideas and social concerns
move in cycles, we would do well, at 50, to re-visit the ideas that led
to our creation – those big ideas alluded to our period of “gestation”
(Ewell, 1999). How do those “old” ideas fit with the world before us? With
the experiences of our last 50 years? I believe what the “old” ideas have
in common is a sense of wholeness: the wholeness of individual experience
and opportunity. Fearless leadership.

Rebirth

At the beginning of the century,
we ask the most basic question once again: what does it mean to be human?
How do we live together well? As we look to the future, we begin by looking
back. As we reach 50 and reflect on its meaning, we can truly say
as Bob Dylan sings “I was so much older then / I'm younger than that now.”

References

Arvold, A. G. (1923). The little country
theater. New York : Macmillan.Brownell, B. (1950). The human community.
New York: Harper.Bugard, R. (1968). Arts in the city: Organizing
and programming community arts councils. New York, Associated Councils
of the Arts.Dreeszen, C, & Korza, P. (Ed.). (1994).
Fundamentals of Local Arts Management. Amherst, MA : published by the Arts
Extension Service, Division of Continuing Education, University of Massachusetts,
in cooperation with the National Assembly of Local Arts Agencies.Dubois, R. D. (1943). Get together Americans:
Friendly approaches to racial and cultural conflicts through the neighborhood-home
festival. New York and London, Harper & brothers.Gard, R. G. (1955). Grassroots theater:
a search for regional arts in America. Madison, Universtiy of Wisconsin
Press.Gibans, N. F. (1982). The Community Arts
Council Movement. New York: Praeger.Graham-Wheeler, D. (1989). Forty years
in the cultural lane. Winston-Salem, NC: Winston-Salem Arts Council.Kanellos, N. (1990). The history of Hispanic
theater in the United States: Origins to 1940. Austin: University of Texas.Overton, P. (1997). Rebuilding the front
porch of America: Essays on the art of community making. Columbia, MO:
The Front Porch Institute.

Patten, M. (1932). The Arts Workshop of
Rural America: A study of the rural arts program of the Agricultural Extension
Service. New York, Columbia University Press.Yuen, C. (1990). Community visions: A
policy guide to local arts agency development. Washington, DC: National
Assembly of Local Arts Agencies.

Americans for the Arts (formerly National
Assembly of Local Arts Agencies), “Arts for America: A Vision for
the Future,” 1988

Arvold, Alfred, The Little Country Theater,
MacMillan, 1923.

Brownell, Baker, The Human Community, Harper
and Bros., 1950.

Burgard, Ralph, Arts in the City, Associated
Councils of the Arts, 1968.

Davis-Dubois, Rachel, Get Together Americans:
Friendly Approaches to Racial and Cultural Conflicts through the Neighborhood-Home
Festival, Harper and Bros,1943.

Dreeszen, Craig and Pam Korza, Fundamentals
of Local Arts Management (second edition) Arts Extension Service – University
of Massachusetts, 1994.

Gard, Robert, Grassroots Theater: A Search
for Regional Arts in America, originally published by University of Wisconsin
Press; reprinted by Greenwood Press, c. 1970, reprinted by University of
Wisconsin Press 1999.

Canon City Daily Record, “The Seeds
and Roots of Fremont Center for the Arts,” May 6, 1999

Rockefeller Archives, Tarrytown, New York,
records and correspondence on funding for Cornell University (Alexander
Drummond), University of Montana (Baker Brownell), University of North
Carolina (Frederick Koch), University of Wisconsin (Robert Gard)

The
Montana Study was an experiment with community study groups to determine
how the resources of higher education in Montana could help stabilize and
improve community living in the small towns of that state. The study was
carried out between 1943 and 1947 by Montana State University (now the
University of Montana) and was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation.

The Montana Study provided community members
with an active voice in community planning. Participants could make their
own industry and employment opportunities. Participants could also research
and write the histories of their towns and present this heritage to the
community in the form of pageants, plays, art, music, and literature. This
self-sufficiency and reflection on the community’s part established the
communion and order of an autonomous city while simultaneously building
relationships among community members to support it.

Montana’s statehood was only 55 years old
in 1944. Many residents remembered the days when vigilantes settled matters
of corruption with lynchings and gunfights. Buffalo herds had long since
disappeared and the cattle industry suffered severe winter conditions.
Montana had a colonial economy because large mining and electric power
industries were controlled from New York City. Many communities were
poor with homes without electricity and indoor plumbing.

Reformers were interested in upgrading
the life of Montana’s communities, many of which had withered when one
big industry or another pulled out of town during the Great Depression.
Facilitators of community studies believed that community stability might
grow by partnering Montana’s communities with the state university system
(Counter, 1991, p. 23).

In 1940, Ernest O. Melby came to Missoula,
Montana as President of Montana State University. Melby came from Northwestern
University, in Illinois, and was a contemporary of John Dewey and William
James. He was known as “an optimist, idealist, and a dreamer” (Counter,
1991, p.34). Melby’s job at Montana State was part of a larger statewide
effort to streamline state government. Melby undertook the reform of the
University and the repair of its deteriorating infrastructure. He was convinced
that adult education from the university would bring public support for
the funding of higher education in Montana (Poston, 1950, p. 17). Indeed,
the State University system was under funded because of a lack of taxpayer
support. Many constituents saw no direct effect of the university on their
lives and understood higher education as something removed from them. When
Melby was appointed Chancellor of the Montana State University System,
in 1943, he sought to create ways that the State University had a direct
effect on the lives of ordinary people. The Montana Study would become
one way in which this was accomplished.

The Study

David H. Stevens, Director of the Humanities
Division of the Rockefeller Foundation, proposed community study groups
to enable community members to solve some of their social, economic, and
cultural problems. After some negotiation and planning, in 1944, the Rockefeller
Foundation made a three-year grant of $25,000 to fund the Montana Study.
The Study was structured around three objectives:

1.) to discover ways to stabilize
community and family;

2.) to find ways to bring facilities of
higher education directly to the people in their communities and in their
occupational situation; and

3.) to research ways to raise the appreciative
and spiritual standards of living of able young people in their home communities
(Counter, 1991, p. 8).

Three staff members administered the study:
philosopher Baker Brownell, from Harvard University; the rural sociologist
Paul Meadows, from Northwestern University; and the Montana journalist
Joseph Kinsey Howard. Howard was a known critic of Anaconda Copper and
Montana Power for their colonial treatment of Montana communities. The
towns of Lonepine, Darby, Stevensville, Woodman, Hamilton, Victor, Conrad,
Lewistown, Libby, Dixon, and a Native American Group at Salish-Kootenai
reservation were the sites for study (Counter, 1991, p. 9).

July 1, 1944 was day one of the Montana
Study. The first task was to create a guide for community research. Community
groups would follow this guide for their community plans. There was “no
attempt to tell others how to run their communities or how to organize
their lives.” Community projects were to be “the work of the people participating
with one another, studying and discussing their own community with a view
toward improvement” (Poston, 1950, p. 25). The strategy of the guide was
built on a series of research questions, designed by the study administrators
on topics of social, economic, and political issues. These topics were
analyzed in relation to the past, the present, and the future. After the
manual was piloted in Lonepine, it was distributed to all the sites.

To execute the directions in the study
manual, communities set up study groups. Each week these groups explored
a topic area. They went out to research the topic themselves and returned
with data. The data was analyzed in the group discussion and they wrote
up their interpretations and discussed them as a group.

Counter (1991) summed up the sequence of
a typical community study. Week one: The group examined the composition
of their communities in terms of nationality, history, occupation, religion,
politics, education, recreation. Week two was about people in the community,
their human connections, the groups to which they belonged. Participants
traced patterns of companionship in, churches, schools, lodges, clubs,
and other kinds of recreation. Week three was a look at how community members
made their living. Week four: The group examined the relation of their
community to the State. In week five they examined cultural differences
and week six was the relation of community to the nation.

From this point, the study shifted to projecting
aims for the future. Week Seven, the group speculated on the future of
Montana. Week eight was about the future of the community. Week nine was
the planning of community action to stabilize the community, in synthesis,
such that they could manage change, provide community members with ways
to make a living and to strengthen the educational, cultural, and artistic
aspects of community. The last topic was the group’s evaluation of the
goal of the study, their ability to discuss community matters with a minimum
of prejudice and with a fair degree of objectivity.

Results

The study groups made significant impacts.
In Lonepine, several study groups considered the problem of recreation.1
The group contacted specialists in Denver, Colorado for advice. “They raised
money for remodeling the community building, put in new equipment and a
simple lunch concession” (Brownell, 1950, p. 47) Another group organized
a drama about the history of Lonepine.

From the study also came conferences about
some of the larger issues that the study revealed. The conferences were
held throughout the state on modern trends in rural life, family, church,
and state. Forest Community research dealt with sustained landscape management
of over harvested forests in Western Montana. Participants addressed problems
between community and lumber industry (Counter, 1991, p. 52). These conferences
became the means to formulate and transmit a body of educational knowledge
to a wider audience. These events also provided ways to improve the community
and state economies, cultures, and education.

Community members found that relations
between school and community needed improvement and ideas from the history
and culture of the community were included in school curriculum. Groups
suggested ways that teachers could be trained to guide and promote continuous
community programming. The programs would cover such issues as modern problems
of communication technology, and perceptions of the world and of nature.
Activities ranged from book reviews to recreation and involvement in art,
music, and drama. Teacher retention was also addressed with calls for improved
salaries and housing. The study suggested ways to make teachers feel at
home. As some teachers were forced to rent quarters in rat-infested hotels,
communities were encouraged to plan for better housing for teachers.

Community members also found that drama
promoted communication, organization and relationships. Brownell (1950)
wrote that “[a]rt as a function of communal behavior belongs to the evaluative
aspect of life” (p.265). One of these events was an historical pageant
about the city of Darby. The pageant was drawn from the history of struggle
when the logging industry pulled out of Lincoln County. The pageant was
written, produced, and cast from the community. Productions like this drew
upon the dramaturgy of the community itself, that is, for a group of community
members to pull together their efforts and create drama for the edification
and reflection of the larger community.

One of the major literary works from the
Montana Study was Joseph K. Howard’s Montana Margins (1946). Howard’s
work promoted Montana communities and their economic and cultural life.
The work was an anthology for teaching historical literacy and included
speeches, political documents, poetry, novels and non-fiction by Montana
authors. Montana Margins was published, in 1946, by Yale University
Press. This work set forth a lexicon of Montana’s literary culture with
the added value of the Yale Press imprint.

After 1946, the Montana Study was on shaky
ground. World War II had ended, along with interest in community planning.
The pall of the Great Depression faded and Federal Relief Projects were
dismantled. In general, the kinds of community activities that provided
relief from this economic depression were now regarded by some as unnecessary,
or as socialistic and, therefore, suspect. As the post-war prosperity burst
forth and university enrollment boomed, focus of education turned to the
success and expression of the individual. In this way, the collective emphasis
of the Montana Study appeared to have no tangible benefit to the Montana
State University System. Melby, Brownell, and Howard left the project,
leaving only an English teacher, Ruth Robinson, to carry on as acting director.
When the Montana State Legislature refused to fund the Montana Study another
year, The Rockefeller Foundation agreed to extend funding for the study
only if Robinson were hired on as university faculty. But she was not hired,
and the Rockefeller Foundation withdrew support and the study was over
(Counter, 1991, p. 62).Reflection on Issues

The Montana Study is framed by three sweeping
changes. The communications revolution provided the ability to transcend
conventions of geographic space and time with the immediacy of broadcasting
and faster transportation. Next, the organizational revolution was the
bureaucracy of industry that developed since the middle 19th century. This
was a new middle class of people who organized work, production, distribution,
and consumption. They were the first to obtain power as salaried workers
and not property owners. Finally, the organic revolution includes the processes
and relations of people in every day life and artistic activities (Susman,
1984, p. 240).

Community studies were also organized to
promote cultural activities in small American towns. The difference between
culture transmitted across the mass media and that transmitted in community
studies is that community studies fostered the direct involvement of community
members, who worked together to formulate and express their own cultural
rituals and ideas. These relationships were the means by which community
change could occur. The Montana Study grew from this tradition of community
self-sufficiency.

The facilitators of the Montana Study also
believed strongly in the importance of cities and civilization. As a consequence
the Montana Study was influenced by cities as standards for every aspect
of civilization from social conduct to architecture. People of the gilded
age believed that good architecture bore direct influence on the formation
of ones character (Smeins, 1999, p.17). With all its good and bad traits,
the city was called the proving ground for the measure of character. Thomas
Aquinas said that to be a good Christian one must live in the city (as
cited in Susman, 1984, p.242). Indeed, many Protestant evangelical orators
went westward, from the 19th century into the 20th century, to preach the
virtues of moral, civilized living along with stories of the “Holy City,”
and “Zion,” of myth. However, these orators trounced the culture of American
“Earthly” cities as evil places of vice and corruption. The American city
as source of the moral, social, and cultural order was lost in the myths
of the evil and ideal cities.

Later, broadcasting and mass culture would
transmit the myth of the ideal city to the rural spaces, what Lewis Mumford
(1961) termed the “Invisible City”, which he felt was society misled by
the technocracy of mass communication. This technocracy was similar to
the fragmented society that the Montana Study sought to put in check. Others
argued that these mass cultural influences made positive impacts on listeners
and brought the city’s culture into homes; rural and urban alike (Cremin,
1988; Susman, 1984).

The purpose of the Montana Study was to
bring higher education and improved life to Montana communities. However,
the study also carried out the progressive charge that civilization was
the result of intelligence, the arts, social enjoyment and increased mental
activity.

________________________________1. Several
young people complained that not enough recreation was available and that
they sought to leave Lonepine, which would have led to instability of the
population.

References

Brownell, B. (1950). The human community:
Its philosophy and practice for a time of crisis. New York Harper and Brothers.

Susman, W. I. (1984). Culture as history:
The transformation of American society in the twentieth century. New York:
Pantheon Books

Maryo
Ewell is Associate Director of the Colorado
Council on the Arts. Prior to joining the CCA Council in 1982, she
was Director of Community Programs at the Illinois
Arts Council, and before that, she worked for two community arts councils
in Connecticut. In fact, she has been hooked on community arts since
her first summer job in Wisconsin in 1967. In 1995 she was honored by Americans
for the Arts with their highest award in grassroots community arts development,
the Selina Roberts Ottum award. She has a M.A. in Planning from CU-Denver;
a M.A. in Organizational Behavior from Yale; and a B.A. in Social Psychology
from Bryn Mawr College.

Clayton
Funk is on the Research Services Staff of the Milbank
Memorial Library at Teachers College, Columbia University. He has also
taught educational research and thesis writing courses at Queens College,
CUNY and at SUNY New Paltz.

He has an M.F.A. in painting from Bowling
Green State University and an Ed.D. in Art Education from Teachers College.
He is also a degree candidate at the Graduate School of Library and Information
Studies, Queens College, CUNY. Research interests include American art,
material culture, architecture and education during the early twentieth
century.

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